Abstract:
Nobel Prizes are commonly seen to be among the most prestigious
achievements of our times. Based on mining several
million citations, we quantitatively analyze the
processes driving paradigm shifts in science. We find that
groundbreaking discoveries of Nobel Prize Laureates
and other famous scientists are not only
acknowledged by many citations of their landmark papers. Surprisingly,
they also boost the citation rates of their previous
publications. Given that innovations must
outcompete the rich-gets-richer effect for scientific citations, it
turns out that they can make their way only through
citation cascades. A quantitative analysis reveals
how and why they happen. Science appears to behave like a
self-organized critical system, in which citation cascades of all
sizes occur, from continuous scientific progress all
the way up to scientific revolutions, which change
the way we see our world. Measuring the “boosting
effect” of landmark papers, our analysis reveals how new ideas and new
players can make their way and finally triumph in a
world dominated by established paradigms. The
underlying “boost factor” is also useful to discover
scientific breakthroughs and talents much earlier than through
classical citation analysis, which by now has become a
widespread method to measure scientific excellence,
influencing scientific careers and the distribution
of research funds. Our findings reveal patterns of collective
social behavior, which are also interesting from an attention
economics perspective. Understanding the origin of
scientific authority may therefore ultimately help
to explain how social influence comes about and why the value of
goods depends so strongly on the attention they attract.

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This is a blog (now) associated with the European Social Simulation Assocation SIG on "Simulating the Social Processes of Science". For all queries about the SIG, or items to post here please contact Bruce Edmonds "bruce at edmonds dot name". Thanks